Posted on 10/21/2008 1:50:27 AM PDT by LisaAnne
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama will leave the presidential campaign trail to visit his ailing 85-year-old grandmother in Hawaii, whose health has deteriorated in recent weeks, an aide said on Monday.
With two weeks left in an intense battle for the White House, Obama will hold a campaign event in Indianapolis on Thursday and then fly to Hawaii to see his grandmother before returning to campaigning on Saturday, aide Robert Gibbs said.
"Senator Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life," Gibbs said in a statement.
"Along with his mother and his grandfather, she raised him in Hawaii from the time he was born until the moment he left for college."
The campaign interruption comes as both candidates head into a final sprint for the November 4 election. Obama criticized Republican White House rival John McCain for a "say-anything, do-anything" political style as he launched a two-day tour to kick off early voting in Florida.
McCain told supporters in Missouri that "nothing is inevitable" and he could still beat Obama, who leads in national opinion polls as the pair began a frenzied race to the finish line.
Obama's former Democratic rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, joined the Illinois senator at a rally of 50,000 people in Orlando.
"In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over," Obama said. "We've seen it before. Hillary has been subject to it before.
"We're seeing again today -- ugly phone calls, misleading mail and TV ads, careless, outrageous statements -- all aimed at keeping us from working together, all aimed at stopping change," he said.
Obama noted McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, told reporters on Sunday that if she called the shots she would end the automated phone calls being made by McCain's campaign, including some that link Obama with 1960s radical Bill Ayers.
"You have to work really hard to violate Gov. Palin's standards on negative campaigning," Obama said.
McCain defended the calls, shrugging off Palin's remarks in an interview to be aired on Tuesday morning.
"Well, Sarah is a maverick," McCain told CBS' "Early Show." "That robocall is absolutely accurate and by the way, Senator Obama's campaign is running robocalls as we speak."
Florida a battleground
Obama planned to spend two days in Florida to encourage voters to cast their ballots early in the battleground state, which has 27 electoral votes and is vital for either candidate in their quest for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
Standing on stage next to Obama, Clinton highlighted the financial crisis as she urged Florida voters to choose Obama.
"Now is the time to close the deal for Barack Obama and close the book on eight years of failed Republican leadership," she said, linking McCain to President George W. Bush.
"Sending the Republicans to clean up the economic mess in Washington is like sending the bull to clean up the china closet." It was the third time Clinton and Obama have campaigned together since he clinched the Democratic nomination in June.
A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll showed Obama with a 6-point edge on McCain. A new CNN poll gave Obama a 5-point lead among likely voters, down from an 8-point edge two weeks ago. Other polls also showed a tightening race.
At a rally outside Kansas City, Missouri, McCain jumped on comments from Obama's running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, that Obama would be tested with an international crisis within six months of becoming president.
"We don't want a president who invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting in two wars," McCain said.
"Senator Obama won't have the right response, and we know that because we've seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign."
Obama touted his endorsement from Republican former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Obama said on NBC's "Today" a day after earning the endorsement of Powell, who is also a retired four-star general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss."
If he is indeed the Lord Black Messiah as we are brainwashed to believe, he certainly can raise the dead grandmother from under the bus. The Chosen One, The Savior, according to the new NAZI media. He teh great One is certainly capable of raising her from the dead after he tossed her under the bus. Marxist scumbag.....
I’m so sorry to hear about your mother.
We knew a family where the wife’s mother died and they put her on ice for a month so the husband and wife could take a planned vacation to Hawaii.
I was also thinking that maybe he is using the Hawaii trip to leave the country for any number of reasons.
“unless he know exactly when he’s shutting her down.”
Your lack of compassion is startling, I think it would upset your grandparents and parents to see how little respect you have for the values they taught you.
Maybe Obama is doing this to monitor our reactions. LOL
ROTFLMAO!!!
Oh, Jonny, you sounded just like Dirty Harry when you said that. ;-)
“...I believe that we are dealing with a manipulator that is several levels of magnitude beyond the klintoons....”
Now THAT would take some doing. The klintons were THE MASTERS of manipulation.
Does anyone know what her medical condition is? Is there anything in the local Hawaii press?
If she is in much pain the doctors could be recommending a morphine drip and no further treatment.
My question is this: If his grandmother is "gravely ill", why is he waiting THREE DAYS before going to visit her? Heck, when I was told last year that my father was "gravely ill", I was on my computer IMMEDIATELY booking the next possible flight back east to visit him.
Maybe it's me, but this fails the smell test.
One thing for sure, there is more to this trip than a sick grandmother.
I have a question for you. If she's so gravely ill and he's so deeply concerned why is he waiting until Thursday to go to Hawaii? If it were my mother or grandmother I would drop everything...and I mean everything...and leave immediately. She may well be very ill but his reaction is all sop for the masses.
Wow. It is amazing to me how people can be.
I often marvel at some of my friends families though. And at some of the folks here on FR. The love in their lives is a beautiful thing.
It makes it hard for them to understand that there is another spectrum on the family scale. A part of the scale that pegs a cold, cold zero. My brother was a zero and I often find my lack of empathy sets me on the cold side too. Not a zero maybe, but lukewarm hopefully.
“One thing for sure is there more to this trip than a sick grandmother.”
Dude, if you want to piss away an election and have a tax-hiking socialist in the White House you are free to hype all the silly theories you wish.
I guarantee when O’Bama is defeated it will be because of issues in the real world—not the fevered imagination of the paranoiacs.
The mother's death had been totally out of the blue.
Dude, I don't trust the word of a lying sociopath who will say and do anything to achieve his objectives. I don't know why Obama has taken the dramatic step of suspending his campaign and headed for Hawaii for two days starting Thursday, but I believe "my grandmother is sick" excuse on a par with Bill Ayers is "just a guy who lives in the neighborhood" and he never heard Rev Wright say anything racist while attending his church for 20 years.
There are plenty of reasons I can think of for Obama to go to Hawaii beyond the "conspiracy" theories of where he was born or other such issues. Obama has carefully controlled what we know about him, his associations, and his life. Something may have been discovered that merits his personal attention. Or this could be an Axelrod PR event to remind voters that Obama is biracial and raised by his white grandmother, i.e., Obama in not racist radical and not to be feared. The McCain campaign is thinking about using the Wright connection now.
I guarantee when O’Bama is defeated it will be because of issues in the real world—not the fevered imagination of the paranoiacs.
I guarantee that McCain will lose unless he can make the election a referendum on Obama, i.e., his inexperience, his radical/racist associations, and a murky, past. The issues just won't work given the fact that we have the Dems painting McCain as the third term of Bush, a very unpopular Rep President who is now presiding over an economy in deep trouble. Unless McCain can make the case that Obama is not up to the job, he loses. He needs an October surprise and it needs to be personal.
I just read your comment that your mother is in her last days. You and your mom are in my thoughts and prayers. God Bless. -
She did except for when she'd be screwing around with married men of questionable repute. Then she left him with his poor old granny...who happened to be a VP of the Bank of Hawaii.
Bull crap. He would throw his kids to the wolves if it would benefit him politically. He’s already connected her to the “evil” that has come to him in his life by way of racism; it’s political show.
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